Surfactants in Enhanced Oil Recovery

Normally, oil comes out from the reservoir with its own energy. However, this primary production averages 30% of oil inplace. Various enhanced recovery methods are used to bring a substantial percentage of the remaining oil to surface. The paper describes the evaluation and experimental procedures for evaluating a surfactant system and the expected additional recoveries. It also describes the importance and the essential measurement of all physico-chemical parameters viz. interfacial tension optimal salinity, solubilisation, adsorption and the flood studies carried out in the laboratories using actual reservoir rock and oil add a techno-economic analysis of the process.